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Kashmiri nation awaits Maqbool Butt’s return to the
Homeland. His mortal remains must be released by government of India.

At
home and in the diaspora, on 11 February every year, people of Jammu Kashmir
mark the day, as a day of resolve and affirmation of their right to freedom,
and independence in reunified Jammu Kashmir. This is the day when Kashmiris demand that government
of India releases mortal remains of Muhammad Maqbool Butt, and hands them over
to his family, and his nation. Since his judicial murder by the Indian
government on 11 February 1984, Maqbool Butt’s mortal remains are buried in a
corner of the notorious Tihar Jail in India.

Indian
government with its usual obduracy, and intransigence on all issues relating to
the future status of Jammu Kashmir, refuses to release Maqbool Butt’s body,
despite repeated demands for its return to his homeland. Over the years
successive Indian governments have consistently, and in a blatantly callous
manner, refused to release the mortal remains, either to his family, or in the
care of his party-the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front-JKLF-.

Since
the day of his hanging, an empty grave awaits Maqbool Butt’s mortal remains, to
be interned at the Martyrs’ cemetery in Srinagar, with the respect and dignity
that befits a valiant son of the soil, whom the Kashmiris regard, across both
sides of the ceasefire line, as the father of their nation. Maqbool Butt is a
national hero, and his martyrdom is a symbol and epitome of peoples’ struggle,
to become masters of their destiny in a reunified Jammu Kashmir that is
cohesive, prosperous and at peace with itself, and its neighbours. Maqbool Butt
was a strong advocate of the sovereign rights of his compatriots over their own
country’s destiny, and did not accept either Indian, or Pakistani claims on his
nation’s political destiny.

Maqbool
Butt has become a symbol of resistance, and an inspirational icon to his people,
especially the young, who long to see their homeland freed and reunited, as
envisaged by their martyred leader. Demand for the return of Maqbool Butt’s
mortal remains will continue, as well as the demand and the struggle for which,
he was judicially murdered by a country’s government that has reneged on all the
solemn pledges, it made before the international community on the Kashmiris’
right to freedom.

India
also refuses to release mortal remains of Afzal Guru, whom the Indian
government hanged on trumped up charges in February 2013. This clearly shows
India’s tyrannical policies towards Kashmir, and an utter disregard for the
civil and political rights of Kashmiris. Undoubtedly Indian government follows
a vindictive, oppressive and colonialist paradigm, to reinforce its political
hegemony, and occupation of Jammu Kashmir by continued imprisonment of Maqbool
Butt and Afzal Guru even in death!

This
in reality, is the true face of Indian democracy, which on 34th martyrdom
anniversary of the most illustrious son of the soil, Kashmiris at home and
abroad will continue to expose, as they do today, on this 11th day of February 2018,
from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad, and from London to Brussels, North America and
in many other cities of the world. Rallies, vigils, seminars and public
gatherings held on this day, are a testimony of the expression of solidarity, and determination,
by the Kashmiris with Maqbool Butt’s struggle and sacrifice, and Maqbool Butt’s
right as the father of the nation, and Afzal Guru to be buried in their homeland-Kashmir.

The JKLF has strongly condemned the ongoing firing and shelling across the ceasefire line between the Indian and Pakistani forces in Jammu Kashmir, and violent suppression of political dissent by Indian forces in Indian held part of the forcibly divided country. In a statement issued by the head of JKLF’s Diplomatic Bureau from London today, the JKLF has called on the United Nations to ensure safety of civilians both inside Indian held Jammu Kashmir, and along both sides of the ceasefire line as a priority, through strengthening the role of its UNMOGIP contingent in the region. The JKLF has called on the UN to institute urgent measures to demilitarise the ceasefire line and demand assurances from the opposing armies for safety of civilians in the border areas.

The statement also took a strong note of the continuing deaths of innocent civilians in Shopian and elsewhere in the Valley of Kashmir at the hands of the Indian army. And termed the current situation intolerable, and unbecoming of a civilised world when civilians are deliberately targeted by a professional army, whether in Shopian, Pulwama, Kupwara, Handwara, Bandipur in Indian held Jammu Kashmir, or in Jagalpar Kuiratta, Nykyal, Poonch, Neelam valley or indeed many parts of Pakistan administered Jammu Kashmir. The only result of such military actions is death and injury to innocent civilians of all ages. The international community has a moral and legal responsibility to censure those responsible for causing misery, death and desolation to innocent lives.

The JKLF statement pointed out that for seventy years, India and Pakistan are locked in conflict over their claims and counter claims on Jammu Kashmir. Both countries have fought full scale wars, and daily exchanges of fire by their armies along the almost five hundred miles long cease-fire line, makes it absolutely impossible for tens of thousands of civilians, to lead a normal existence. Many lives are destroyed through death and destruction. Children whose parents put them to bed at night are found dead in the mornings with bullets and bomb shrapnels pierced through their tiny bodies. This carnage of innocent lives takes place because Indian and Pakistani armies are deployed eyeball to eyeball along the ceasefire line.

The JKLF statement added that the Indo-Pakistan confrontation causes immense suffering and miseries for people on both sides with nothing in sight by way of redress and justice. The entrenched positions of both countries have rendered 20 million forcibly divided people invisible, which is nothing less than a tragedy of epic proportions for Jammu Kashmir- a country- as big as Great Britain in size. Indian and Pakistani military presence in Jammu Kashmir is a constant physical and psychological threat, and danger to the safety and wellbeing of the people. Their presence is also an impediment to peace in the region and the world as both countries are nuclear powers.

The JKLF statement concluded by exhorting the United Nations to take urgent actions to disengage Indian and Pakistani military forces from the civilian population not only on the borders across both sides of the ceasefire line, but also force Indian military into cantonments. The JKLF urged the United Nations to appoint a special rapporteur to investigate the many violations of basic human rights of the people of Jammu Kashmir. The statement called on the international community to persuade India and Pakistan to provide unhindered access to the international and local media to report freely on the current situation on the ceasefire line.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) will commemorate the 34rd Martyrdom anniversary of its founder Maqbool Butt Shaheed all around the world. JKLF will hold seminars, public meetings and demonstrations in Indian Held Kashmir, all cities of Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, cities of Pakistan, India, Europe, Middle East and America.

A meeting of JKLF London Branch was held in connection of 11 February preparations. JKLF London Branch will participate in large numbers in a protest outside Indian High Commission in London. During this meeting, senior leader of JKLF in UK Mahmood Hussain struggle and martyrdom of Maqbool Butt is a glorious chapter of our history that will always guide us through the tough journey of freedom struggle.

11 February is being commemorated as Maqbool Bhat’s martyrdom anniversary. On this day Kashmiris all across the world remember their hero with honour and pride. Maqbool But was hanged by India in Tihar jail on 11 February 1984 and his body was never given to Kashmiris for the burial.

A letter to British Prime Minister Theresa May was also handed over to officials at 10 Downing Street, London. As United Kingdom will host the 25th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April of 2018, the letter urged to set up a Mediation Panel comprising of commonwealth nations, which would engage with the concerned parties for a solution, that is consistent with the unfettered, and inalienable right of Kashmiris, to determine their political destiny.

The letter was handed over by Zafar Khan, Mahmood Hussain, Sabir Gul and Tariq Sharif.

The copy of the letter is below

_______________________________

Rt. Hon’ble Mrs Theresa May MP,Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.10 Downing StreetLondonSW1

Date: 23 January 2018

Dear Prime Minister,

Re: Commonwealth nations must play their role, for an equitable solution of the Jammu Kashmir issue.

As United Kingdom will host the 25th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April of 2018, we take the opportunity to seek British support, on the unresolved political status of Jammu Kashmir, usually referred to as Kashmir. We believe Her Majesty’s Government is in a uniquely privileged position on the occasion, to extend its support for a meaningful engagement towards a just, and equitable solution of the longstanding Kashmir issue.

Last month, on the crucially important issue of reunification and Kashmir’s political status, we wrote to the Commonwealth Secretary-General Rt. Hon Baroness Scotland, and reminded her that the Commonwealth nations, needed to take constructive steps towards a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue at the 25th CHOGM in London this year. We asked the Secretary-General to set up a Mediation Panel which would engage with the concerned parties for a solution, that is consistent with the unfettered, and inalienable right of Kashmiris, to determine their political destiny. While Rt.Hon. Mr Boris Johnson MP, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs was sent a copy of the letter, on the important question of Kashmir’s future political status however, we felt it particularly germane, to engage directly with you .

Prime Minister as you are aware, for seventy years now, India and Pakistan have utterly failed to address the all-important question of Kashmir’s future status. Both have fought full scale wars, and continue to confront each other across the ceasefire line, that forcibly divides Kashmiris under their de-facto rule. The ceasefire line in Kashmir also represents de-facto rather than de-jure border. Separation of Kashmiri people in general, and hundreds of thousands of families in particular across the ceasefire line, is enforced by armies of both India and Pakistan. At least a dozen substantial resolutions of the UNSC were passed on the issue, which were supported, and in some cases sponsored by Her Majesty’s past governments. Bilateral agreements, like the Tashkent and Shimla Accords, were signed and agreed upon by India and Pakistan. Thus far however, not even an iota of progress has been made towards a solution, while entrenched positions of both countries, add enormously to the suffering, misery, indignity of separation, and occupation for the Kashmiris.

Prime Minister India for her part has demonstrated an extreme intransigence over the years, and is fervently insistent that Kashmir is an internal affair of India. Despite staking claim to be given a permanent seat on the UNSC, India however, has completely reneged on all the commitments and solemn pledges, which she made at the United Nations. Today India’s de-jure position in Kashmir therefore, is that of an occupier. With a growing economic position however, India invests an enormous amount of energy in aggressive diplomacy, to make Kashmir a non-issue at the international level. India’s militarised violence over the years has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths of Kashmiris. India’s military in Kashmir, acts with impunity under laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act-AFSPA. Thus a culture of impunity prevails in Kashmir, which makes India’s huge military deployment in the territory, virtually unaccountable for its violations of human rights.

Since 2014 in particular, Indian government has shown an unprecedented military and political aggression in its policies against the Kashmiris, and their pro freedom leadership. Indian government has declared war on the people, especially the young of Kashmir. Hundreds have been blinded in an unbridled, and indiscriminate use of force with weapons such as the pellets guns. More than150 people have been killed, and more than fifteen thousand injured since July of 2016. Indian military even stoops, to the reprehensible level, of using innocent Kashmiris, as human shields. India imposed longest ever curfew in the history of Kashmir for two months, to tire Kashmiris into submission, and discredit their political leaders.

The Joint Resistance Leadership-JRL- comprising of Sayed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz-umar Farooq, and Mr Muhammad Yasin Malik, has been put under constant house arrests and incarcerated, as in Mr Malik’s case, through a revolving door process of being incarcerated in police stations or in Srinagar Central Jail. The fundamental democratic rights of the leaders to free speech, free movement and engagement with the people, is denied to them. The harassment of leaders and activists, as part of an aggressive culture of impunity, and political victimisation, is rife. Many activists, and leaders like Shabir Shah for example, languish in Indian jails on politically motivated charges.

Furthermore the Indian government, quite insidiously prevents the JRL to interact, and engage with religious minorities. This is a deliberate attempt to engineer, not only a religious and communal cleavage within Kashmiri society, but to malign the political resistance, and its leaders as ‘sponsored’. This is one of the reasons, why India confines political leaders either in their homes or in custody. The Indian government with its aggressively sharp political rhetoric, encourages communal extremism of its ideological bed fellows, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-RSS- in Kashmir. Equally as the progenitor of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the RSS exerts an incontrovertibly enormous grip, on the policies of the ruling BJP in India.

Even the mortal remains of leaders, whose executions can only be described as judicial murders, are not handed over to their families, despite repeated demands for their return by them. Mortal remains of both Muhammad Maqbool Butt, who was hanged in 1984, and Afzal Guru who was hanged in 2013, remain buried in the grounds of India’s Tihar Jail. India shows immense pride in being the largest democracy in the world. In Kashmir however, India’s democracy represents nothing other than intolerance, and betrayal of peoples’ rights and aspirations.

Prime Minister India and Pakistan’s presence, and their confrontation across the divide in Kashmir, is a constant threat to peace in the region. As nuclear powers, each of them has the capacity to destroy the entire sub-continent, and beyond. Their armies pose a mortal danger to Kashmiris, and a much greater one, to their own combined populations of one and a half billion people. Indo-Pakistan rivalry is also a fundamental reason for lack of social, economic, and infrastructure development on both sides of the divide in Kashmir. In the dispute over the status of their country, Indo- Pakistan confrontation, has quite painfully rendered Kashmiris invisible. Kashmiris’ cries of anguish and betrayal are not heard, as a consequence of the deafening reality of status-quo, enforced by India and Pakistan in their divided country.

Of course Kashmiris recognise the importance of peace, stability, and economic development in their society. Forced geographic separation, and social dislocation during the past seventy years however, has deprived them of a unified country. Their democratic rights on both sides of the ceasefire line, have been ignored and subverted. They have endured violent oppression in the Indian held part of their country. And furthermore blatantly, and in a brazenly defiant manner, India has deprived them of the right to decide, a right which is inalienable, and God given.

Prime Minister, in 1982 an illustrious, and esteemed predecessor of yours, had to despatch thousands of young British soldiers to the South Atlantic, with the noble objective, to enforce, and assert, the fundamental human right of the Falkland Islanders to decide. Equally, as a genuine reflection of being the oldest democracy in the world, and without malice and recriminations, Her Majesty’s Government in 2014 of which, you were a prominent member, acceded to the demand by the Scottish nationalists, for the democratic right to decide, on Scotland’s union with the United Kingdom. It is quite ironic and sad therefore, that a country which boasts of being the biggest ‘democracy’ has allowed its military in Kashmir to kill, by all accounts around, a hundred thousand people, for making the same legitimate demand to decide. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, India also demands the privilege of being made a permanent member of the UN Security Council, despite openly defying and disregarding its numerous resolutions on Kashmir.

Prime Minister, Kashmiris wish both India and Pakistan well. Both countries have huge potential, despite facing the perennial challenges of social and economic inequalities. Both India and Pakistan have combined population of over a billion and a half, and growing fast. While this presents enormous challenges, it also provides them with an immense energy for innovation and economic and technological development in their societies. It is in this context that Kashmiris across the ceasefire line have welcomed the China Pakistan Economic Corridor-CPEC-.

As the mega CPEC project begins its journey to Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar, it first enters into Pakistan controlled, Kashmir region of Gilgit Baltistan. Kashmiris therefore, expect CPEC to, primarily benefit Gilgit Baltistan region, as well as others parts of Pakistan administered Kashmir. However, due to lack of democracy, and unrepresentative political structures in Gilgit Baltistan, and the territory of Azad Jammu Kashmir, the extent of real benefits to these regions, of Pakistan controlled Kashmir from CPEC, are a cause for serious concern. As a consequence, this concern has accentuated the demand for tangible democratisation and merger of both regions, including setting up of a democratically elected Joint Council for the regions, free of control from Islamabad. Thus far however, Pakistan government is not responding to these people centric demands.

Prime Minister, seventy years of forced division has not dimmed the burning desire of Kashmiris, to reunite and live as a free people. However, as long as India and Pakistan are embroiled in, and control Kashmir, the desire remains but a distant dream. We therefore, urge you to use your deeply warm relations with both countries, and the Commonwealth, to extend British support for setting up of a Commonwealth’s panel of mediators at the 25th CHOGM in London, that would engage with concerned parties, for a peaceful resolution of the conflict over Kashmir’s political status.

In conclusion we urge you to engage with Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers directly, and persuade them to take the first step along with the Kashmiris, for a peaceful and lasting resolution. As Kashmiris, we desire a peaceful solution, but do not have partners in our quest for peace. Kashmiris wish to make their country a bridge of peace and friendship between India and Pakistan. Kashmiris wish for a peaceful and prosperous South Asia, and seek to see India and Pakistan develop neighbourly relationship similar to that, which exists, between the United States and Canada. But above all, Prime Minister, Kashmiris as a nation, must be allowed to decide. And for the sake of justice and democracy in Kashmir, India and Pakistan must be persuaded, to facilitate an unfettered decision by the Kashmiris- as this is the only way forward.

Statement by Diplomatic Bureau of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front-JKLF-

London-14 January 2018: Meeting of the JKLF’s Diplomatic Bureau took place at its international secretariat in London, in which various aspects, and dimensions of the Kashmir issue were discussed, and decisions were made and appropriate actions were decided upon. A brief statement of some of the decisions taken, was issued here today, in which the participants strongly affirmed, and reiterated that the JKLF leadership, will not compromise on the unfettered, and inalienable right to self-determination of 20 million people, across both sides of the ceasefire line. The Bureau also affirmed its strong resolve to extend full diplomatic voice, to the ongoing political struggle of the resistance leadership in Jammu Kashmir.

The statement declared, that the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, presents an existential threat to South Asia, as both countries are nuclear powers. The statement called on the international community, to engage with the concerned parties for a peaceful resolution, of the 70 year long conflict. The Bureau’s statement further declared, that the people of Kashmir wish to make their country, abridgeof peace in the sub-continent, and are willing to accommodate, Indian and Pakistani concerns over reunification and independence of Kashmir. The meeting however, noted that Kashmiris do not have partners in their endeavours, for a peaceful resolution of Kashmir’s political status.

The statement in particular, condemned India’s intransigence on the Kashmir issue, and its unprecedented aggression, and militarised violence against peaceful dissent. And called on the United Nations Human Rights Council-UNHRC-, and other humanitarian organisations, to demand an unhindered access to Jammu Kashmir, for an impartial investigation of violations, and excesses against civilians. In relation to death and destruction caused by exchanges of fire, across the ceasefire line between the Indian and Pakistani forces, the statement called on the UN, to strengthen the role of UNMOGIP across both sides of the ceasefire line, to protect civilian population. It was decided that the Bureau would apprise various organisations, and world leaders, including the UN Secretary General, on the gravity of the prevailing situation, both inside Indian held Kashmir, and across the ceasefire line.

It was decided that in April of this year, the JKLF will organise public demonstration during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting-CHOGM- in London, and lobby for a meaningful role on the Kashmir issue, by the CHOGM. A conference and other diplomatic activities were proposed, and approved, to take place in Brussels, in The Hague and Geneva during the year, while similar, diplomatic and political activities, including a seminar, were proposed and approved, to take place in London during 2018.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front -UK has been invited by the All Parties Parliamentary Group on Kashmir to present evidence to its inquiry on human rights abuses in Jammu Kashmir.

The inquiry, first of its kind, is to be conducted in London Parliament on Thursday, 14th December, where JKLF's head of International Campaigns, Azmat A Khan, will present verbal and documentary evidence on human rights and socio-political abuses in both sides of Kashmir.